Dear Mr. Obama

A tip of the hat to Dr. Howdy for sharing this video with me, (his loyal reader):

Fall Festivals

Over the weekend we went to two Fall Festivals in the area. The first one was on Saturday, after our neighborhood costume party. It was held at Honey Horn on HHI and was mostly an assortment of inflatabled for the kids. In the pictures you will see Potty PuttPutt... or whatever clever name they came up with... I was impressed by the creativity of this game and love the expression of the man after Clay didn't make it on his first try.

The second festival was held by our church on Sunday evening at Huspah Platation. It was more in the line of an old fashioned Fall Fest with hayrides, bonfires and game booths for the kids. It was absolutely beautiful on the plantation with these old trees whose limbs sprawl along the ground. There were free roaming cattle too. We discovered this on our hayride, when a herd or two decided to follow the "hay trail".

There's one last picture in this group that doesn't fit the descriptions here, and that is because it was taken in Charleston, where we drove- very spontaneously I might add- to eat dinner after the festival. We were outside of California Dreaming on the water and this picture was the last before my camera battery surrendered to slumber:

Curious Costume Party

Island West (our neighborhood) held a costume party this past weekend for residents. The children were encouraged to come in costume and the adults were invited to enter a chili cook off. We indulged in all the available fun. My chili took third place- my prize was a maple leaf pancake turner and some halloween pancake molds with changeable face expressions. ( pumpkin & skeleton)
I had nudged the kids to think of costumes in lots of three... the three musketeers, Peanut, Butter, & jelly, etc. While in a local thrift store, we came across a yellow suit coat that Fisher fell in love with. It didn't take long from there to come up with The Man In The Yellow Hat, Curious George and A Banana. It did take a lot of coaxing to convince Logan to be a banana, and contrary to what you might believe, pointing out that she could call herself "Hannah Banana" didn't help matters at all. Finally, she agreed and our costume was a hit. The children painted pumpkins, guessed how many candy corns in a jar and played a modified version of "Cake Walk" where we gave them extra goody  bas instead of cakes, because we adults thought we'd rather share/eat the cakes than give them all away. I like to think I had something to do with that because a lot of folks wanted to open the cake I brought and were dismayed to hear it was for the cake walk. It was Brown Sugar Banana Sour Cream Pound Cake with Chocolate Chips, Pecans & Poppy Seeds with a Chocolate Ganache Glaze. Lots of people were happy, and said so, once they got to open  and taste it. I beamed a bit, I'm sure :)
It was great to get to meet our neighbors and just relax in this way for the morning ( the cake and chili had kept me up cooking all the night before!)
Here are some pictures of our time with neighbors (and the irresistable proof the my kids once dressed up like this for me :) :

SC State Fair & Concert

We recently attended the SC State Fair and a Jeremy Camp/Toby Mac concert held inside. During the night of the concert, it rained constantly and there was no humor left over for rides, candy apples or cotton candy. But the music was good and the concert a lot of fun despite the downpour. The next day, Clay and Chandler headed to a Carolina football game and because the cost for five tickets to the game far outweighed three tickets to the fair, I opted... volunteered.... begged... to go to the fair with the younger two kids instead :)  We had a lot of fun and blew throughh 50 tickets in rides with ease! Strangely, as I get older, I find I actually WANT to see all the exhibited art, food and contest entries. This doesn't carry over to my children... they were interested but didn't find it as fascinating as bumper cars. My favorite part of the fair has got to be, will always be, the food. Especially fried things.. namely cheese on a stick. This year I tried a deep fried Oreo too... it was like getting a doughnut with an oreo inside. Behold, footage (if you click on these pictures to go to the Flickr site, there is also a bumper cars video from Fisher driving me around):

SOGGY CONCERT:

STATE FAIR FUN:

Terrarium & Miscellaneous Fruit

Making greehouses from 2 liter bottles and baby food, plus some funky fruit we had for breakfast:

Dr Williams & Chandler

CarysAugusta 022, originally uploaded by kellybrewer.

We recently visited Augusta to welcome a new baby cousin into the family. While in the hospital, waiting on baby and new momma to come out of recovery, we happened to run into Dr. George Williams. Chandler has wanted to meet "his" doctor for years now. It was definintely a chance encounter, as Dr. Williams is one of the area's most sought after physicians. One is lucky to see him when they go into labor or set an appointment at his office, much less passing in the hallway of the hospital cafeteria. It was a lucky day for Chan and a great reminder of the many blessings I've received all along the way- from being in the care of an excellent and caring doctor when I was pregnant to the healthy baby boy he delivered for me 9 years ago.
My how time flies!

Chili Contest

My chili took third place at our neighborhood Fall Festival today. Mostly, I just copied the "brown bag" instructions and like usual, did things my own peculiar way. I used the above picture to describe my dish and I really think it helped people like what they were ABOUT to eat before they had even tasted it, because, you know chili can be such a murky thing to eat. Sour cream and cheese are a must with me, when it comes to chili, so those were offered in my "chili station".  I am not typically a vain sorta gal, but it did make me feel good when several neighbors made a point to stop by on their mingling route to suggest the judge should have picked mine for first. :)

SCIENCE LESSON: The Atmosphere & Its Layers

Using some of the play doh made earlier, we rolled out "snakes" of

varying colors. The children then rolled these colors into one piece and cut them out using a small juice glass. Using a diagram we had printed, we then labled our atmosphere models in an effort to commit them to memory:

SCIENCE & HISTORY: ICE AGE

The Ice Age was COLD and from the biblical worldview, a resulting climate effect due to the Deluge. We are learning about this in both Science and History. The project was simple: Who can hold an ice cube the longest? Who can hold two? Whose will melt the fastest?

We set the timer for three minutes:

Logan won & no one wanted a second round :)

HITORY PROJECT: Made In His Image

In (Mystery of) History, we began to discuss Creation and the design of man.  The project  was to "create" our own little people out of clay. Using Crayola Air Dry Clay, we each sculpted a "Mini-Mee" of sorts, as we contemplated the great care that went into our very design. We were also challenged to create a new animal from scratch... one that no one has ever heard of before, in the same manner that all animals were first dreamed up. Everyone got REAL creative here, not to mention MESSY! .

CHANDLER & his creature:

LOGAN & her creature

FISHER & his creature

This was a great discussion builder and personally gave me a whole new attitude about those little "flaws" I seem to notice about myself.

When I was "creating" my little Mee, there weren't any flaws... it was just the way she turned out and I liked each small detail that made my sculpture unique. I have not worked with clay a lot in this manner before, but I have always wanted to (I have always wanted a potter's wheel too!) I sincerely plan to seek out classes in clay/pottery in the future... as you will see, I got pretty invested in finishing my Mee, long after the children had moved on to bigger and better things...

My Creature (a hummingbee!) & Myself (lumps and all!):

SCIENCE PROJECT: Fossils & Earth Strata

SCIENCE PROJECT: Fossils & Earth Strata

Our current studies have included fossils and how they are made, as well as the different layers of Earth and the strata formed by different textures of soil. Our project involved adding several differently weighted ground materials to a jar ( we used pebbles, rocks, sand and twigs). We then filled the remaining space in the jar with water. Each child took a turn being the "earthquake" and then we set our jar on a table to settle. We checked the jar one minute later and then another 30 minutes later. The longer the jar sits and settles, the clearer the water becomes and the layers of soil are more easily defined. It has been a few weeks since we did this project, the water is now pretty much back to it's "pre-earthquake(s)" state.



Through this project, we were able to observe the effects of the Deluge on the Earth's surface. We could see how different objects were covered quickly enough under the moving sludge to be fossilized.

We must resist the urge to shake the jar again :)

HOME EC: Blueberry Biscuits

HOME EC: Blueberry Biscuits

We put our measuring skills and instruction following ability to the test one morning not too long ago. The result was (thankfully) edible!

Step 1: Find Early Birds

Step 2: "Stir it up, lil' darlin'(s)...."

Step 3: Place resulting concoction on cookie sheets & bake

Step 4: Pour the milk, breakfast is ready!

( I mean, "Class Dismissed!")

ART PROJECT: Fusion Beads

ART PROJECT: Fusion Beads

Each child was given a bead board and got to spend a little time on their "design". I then took a low heat iron and melted the beads to cries of "Wow!" and "Cool!" and "Awesome!" After their first design, they took a few beads and slid them onto toothpicks to make "worms".

Chandler's design:

Logan's design:

Fisher's design (w/a little help from Mom):

various worms:

This was a fun, new activity; one they look forward to repeating many times again.

Curiosity

I am in some sort of crazy cycle rigt now... never getting caught up before a new adventure begins... and that's OK... but until I return to some form of normalacy in life and in blogging, we'll always have pictures. (worth 1000 words a pop, right?!)

This one is amongst my recent favorites:

While on a trip to see Mom and Dad, DeAnna and I were able to catch up with each other for a day at the zoo...

The girls check out a monkey.

The monkey investigates the onlookers.

" Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most curious one of all? "